Report: Bribery endemic

 THE majority of Papua New Guineas are paying bribes to get services, a Transparency International global corruption barometer (GCB) survey has found.

And Transparency International PNG (TIPNG) chairman Lawrence Stephens says that bribery needed to be stamped out in PNG.

Stephens said in a statement on Friday that 76% of the survey respondents noted that corruption was a serious problem in the public sector. 

“Institutions that people rely on to fight corruption and other crime are not trusted,” he said.

He said most of the respondents said they were asked to pay a bribe when interacting with key public institutions such as police, registry, permit services and land services.

“Eighty-five percent of the respondents viewed that the police were the most affected by corruption,” Stephens said.

He said 70% of the respondents said public servants and political parties were also corrupt while 63% felt the Parliament was also affected by corruption.

“Public institutions, law enforcement agencies and politicians have a lot to do to regain the trust of the citizens of PNG,” Stephens said. 

“The GCB shows a crisis of trust and there is a real concern about the capacity of those institutions responsible for bringing criminals to justice.” 

He said the Government needed to make sure that there were strong, independent and well resourced institutions to prevent and redress corruption. 

“Too many people are harmed when public services are undermined by corruption.”

He said 1,044 people in PNG participated in the survey and nearly half of the respondents agreed that ordinary citizens had the will to combat the abuse of power, secret dealings and other forms of corruption. 

He said citizens also had a social responsibility to minimising corruption by saying no to bribes and reporting an incident of corruption to appropriate authorities.